Blood Of Angels (31 page)

I laid the first one down in front of him. 'Recognize this?'

He frowned. 'It looks like the second scene.'

'That's right.' I put down a second print. 'And this is looking back across the island, from where the shirt was hung.'

'I don't see anything here that…'

Third print. 'This is what it looks like now.'

He stared at the picture. 'What the hell happened?'

'Took a shovel to it.'

His eyes were wide. 'You're joking. This is somewhere else. You didn't really do that to it.'

'I surely did. And actually, it's worse than it looks.'

'I don't believe you've done this. I just don't believe it.'

'Someone had to. The shirt had to mean something. But you just looked at the surface and determined that's all she wrote.' I put another picture down. 'What do you see here?'

'Just mud, Ward.' His voice sounded hollow, aghast. 'And a hopelessly compromised crime scene.'

'Look again.'

Despite himself, he leaned over and looked at the picture more carefully. 'There's something in that hole.'

I put the next four down together.

He looked along the row, blinked, looked back the other way. 'Oh Christ.' He looked along again, then back again. 'No hand.'

He stood, looking like he was about to start moving in three directions at once. 'You should have told… we should have had a proper team on this. You've completely screwed this up.'

'If this is to do with where Nina is then I don't have time to wait for it to be done properly. I've got something else to show you too. It's outside.'

'I have to…'

'You are now officially playing catch-up, Monroe. Follow me right now or I will go into town and find the stupidest reporter I can and start telling them everything I know.'

I headed off towards the main doors. He was level with me by the time I stepped out into the lot. I walked quickly over to the side where my car was parked.

'Get in,' I said.

When we were both inside with the doors shut I started the engine.

'What are you doing?'

Then he heard the sound of the rear door opening, and someone getting in. Monroe wrenched himself around in his seat and stared at Zandt as if he was the devil himself, bearing hotdogs.

'Hey, Charles,' John said. 'Been a while.'

I flipped central locking on, drove over a flowerbed and straight out of the lot.

===OO=OOO=OO===

It was raining harder now and there was some unattractive skidding as I joined the main road. Luckily this distracted Monroe for a moment as he held onto the dash with both hands. Zandt reached over from the back seat, dipped his hand into the agent's jacket pocket and came back out with his gun and cellular phone.

Monroe grabbed his seatbelt and put it on. 'I don't know what you think you're doing,' he said. 'But it's a bad idea.'

'No,' I said. 'You're not going to like it, but that's your problem and you've got a ten-minute drive to come to terms with what's going to happen.'

'Give me my gun back.'

'No,' John said. 'Hold this instead.' He tossed something over to land in Monroe's lap.

'What the hell is that?'

'You tell me.'

Monroe gingerly picked the thing off his trousers. It looked like a short, curved stick, but you didn't have to be a forensics staffer to tell that it was not.

'I went to Richmond this afternoon,' Zandt said. 'Pulled in a couple of prehistoric favours. Had someone look at this and a couple other of the bones we found.'

'Where's it from?'

'Didn't Ward show you the pictures yet?'

'Christ,' Monroe said. 'So you've not just screwed the scene, you've defiled the body too. Or are you so far in the outfield now that you don't understand that kind of thing any more?'

Zandt ignored him. 'The sciatic notch from the pelvis says the body was female. Dating this kind of thing is inexact. My friend said he needed to have seen it
in situ
and we were dumb to remove it, so you and he would agree there. But in his opinion it would have been hard for that bone to have reached this condition in fewer than fifteen years, plus or minus a couple.'

'Say that again?'

'You heard me. This bone came out of the ground near a spot indicated by material left at the site of a murder you're attributing to the suspect in Thornton jail. But this body was put in the ground at a time when your only suspect was between eight and twelve years old.'

Monroe looked at the object in his hand. 'Assuming I take your word for all of this.'

'Why would we lie?' I said, taking the bend which led over the hill past the school towards the centre of what passed for this town. 'I don't give a damn about your killer except in how it relates to Nina. She nailed this from the start. She said a woman didn't kill those two men. This says maybe she was right.'

Monroe rubbed his forehead with both hands. 'And so why am I in this car with you now? Why couldn't we have had this conversation in the hotel?'

'This is the part you're going to have to get your head around,' I said. 'We're about to do something untoward, and you're going to help. John wants to talk to Julia Gulicks.'

'No way,' Monroe said. 'Absolutely no way.'

I'd been expecting him to say no, of course — but I was still surprised by his vehemence. I'd hoped the bone would just push him to the next step, that he'd see it was the obvious way to go.

'We're three minutes from the sheriff's office,' I said. 'You're going to have to change your mind fast if we're not going to waste time. My understanding is that even you would admit that John was a good homicide detective. The way I hear it, he nailed at least one case for you back in the day. So what's your problem?'

'Forget it,' Monroe said. 'He's not a policeman any more. He has outstanding murder warrants, he's actively dangerous, and over my dead body am I letting him
anywhere
near…'

'Look,' I started, but then realized I could hear an odd, melodic noise. I didn't work out what it was immediately, as it wasn't one I was used to hearing.

Then I swerved straight over to the kerb, nearly skidding the car. I reached in my jacket and yanked out my phone. Read the number off the display.

But it wasn't Nina.

'It's Unger,' I said, feeling like I was about to walk out over a long drop.

'Take it outside,' John said.

I opened my door and stepped out into the rain. I flipped open the phone.

'Ward,' he said immediately. 'It's Carl.'

I was silent for a second. What did I do here?

'Ward? Are you there?'

'I'm here.'

'Your friend Agent Baynam. Is there any news?'

'How did you know she was the person I'd told you about?'

'Because the second I left the bar I started calling around.'

I wished he was in front of me. 'You put her in danger. You may have killed her.'

'It's a risk I had to take. I'm not screwing around with this. Your privacy means dick right now. You held back on me last night. So I did what I had to do.'

'What did it get you?'

'Nothing. I still have no idea what is going on. I'm in Langley. Why don't I come back to you? I could be there in two hours tops. We need to talk. I may be able to help.'

I closed the phone on him.

When I got back in the car I expected to enter a fullblown shouting match. Instead it was eerily quiet. Monroe was putting his gun and his phone back in his jacket pocket.

'And?' John said to me.

'Unger was bandying our names around last night but that was after the fact. Reidel's blood was drying by the time I got back to the hotel. It depends whether Unger's lying and I can't make that judgement over the phone. He wants to come to talk.'

'So?'

'He'll come or he won't.' I smacked the steering wheel viciously with both hands. Part of my head was still spinning from the stupid hope it might have been Nina calling me.
'Shit.
I don't know where to go with this. I don't know who's doing what.'

'Drive to the station,' Zandt said.

I looked at Monroe. 'You going to let him talk to her?'

The agent didn't say anything. Just sat there looking out at the night, face sallow-lit by a streetlight. I kicked the car up and drove the last half mile.

===OO=OOO=OO===

The cop behind the desk in the station was the one I'd pushed past the night before. He half-stood as he saw me coming in, but then clocked Monroe was with me this time.

'Sir,' he said, 'this is the guy who…'

'I know,' Monroe said. 'Is anyone using the interview room?'

'Not right now.'

'Get Gulicks in there.'

John and I followed him through the access door and into the corridor.

'You want to be in there when she arrives?' Monroe asked. Say what you liked about him, if circumstances changed, he went with it.

'No,' John said. 'I want to see her first.'

Monroe led us into the observation room. We waited ten minutes while John scanned through the transcripts of the previous day's interviews. Then I heard the sound of the door into the suite being opened. Two cops led Julia Gulicks into the interview room, sat her down. One left. The other stationed himself in front of the closed door.

Julia sat in the middle of the long side of the table, as she had the afternoon before. Her face looked almost pure white. Her hands seemed to tremble a little as she placed one on top of the other in front of her. Then they were still. She looked up, straight at the one-way mirror. Cocked her head a little on one side.

I watched John as he watched her. He stood with one elbow supported in the other hand, a finger up straight against his nose. I don't know how long I watched, but he didn't blink.

'Still no lawyer?'

'No,' Monroe said. 'She asked for and was appointed one. But now she won't talk to him.'

'No family visit? No friends?'

'No one. We had the semi-boyfriend in for questioning late yesterday. He declined the opportunity to speak to her. He said she never talked about family. Don't screw this up, John.'

John left the room. A minute or so later the cop in the room turned and opened the door. John walked in and told the cop to stand outside. He waited until it was just him and Gulicks in the room and then sat on the chair at the end of the table.

After a few moments she turned her head to look at him.

'You're a good-looking guy.'

'Thank you,' John said. 'While since I was paid a compliment.'

'Poor you.'

'I survive. What about you?'

'What about me… what?'

'You going to be okay? You don't have any family or anything, someone who can come by and see how you are?'

'No,' she said. 'Never had any siblings. My parents are dead.'

'Sad story.'

'Depends how it's told.'

'You grew up in Boulder, that's correct?'

'On the money.'

'And you moved to Thornton six years ago?'

'Beautiful place, don't you think?'

'Haven't had time to get to know it, but it doesn't strike me that way.'

'Oh — but all the trees! The pretty little houses?'

'I've never believed picturesque is the same as good.'

She smiled. 'Then maybe cute doesn't equal stupid. This place is all wrong.'

'You understand how much trouble you're in, right? You're not trying for some kind of insanity plea?'

'Wouldn't be half-assed, believe me.'

'See, that kind of thing is probably supposed to help your cause. But it just makes me think you're jerking me around.'

'I'll try to do better.'

'Want to show you something.' John reached into his pocket, took something out, and placed it in the middle of the table.

Standing next to Monroe, I heard his intake of breath. 'Christ,' he said. 'I don't believe this guy.'

Personally I thought John was approaching things right. Gulicks looked and sounded very different to the way she had when I'd first observed her through this glass. There were dark shadows under her eyes, as if she had not slept at all. Shadows in them, too.

She looked down at the object John had put in front of her. 'I already ate,' she said.

'You know what that is?'

'It's a bone.'

'It's a rib. A woman's rib. Where do you think I got it from?'

'Your collection?'

'It came from out in the woods north-west of town. A body was discovered there a couple nights ago. There are people here who want to put that murder on you, along with that of Lawrence Widmar. I see from the notes that Detective Reidel already talked briefly to you about this.'

Gulicks didn't say anything. She was still looking at the bone.

'But this bone isn't from that victim,' John said. 'Because he was male. And the female was buried two feet below the ground.'

'So where did it come from? Please elucidate.'

'You recall Agent Baynam?'

'I do. Nice lady.'

'She is.'

'Have you fucked her?'

I don't know what it felt like being in that room, but where Monroe and I were standing, it felt cold. Not because of him. Because of her.

She smiled brightly. 'I bet you have, right? She looked like hard work, I must say, but maybe that's your type.'

'No, Julia,' John said. 'You're more my style. Nothing I like better than a woman who white-knuckles it through every day and spends the evening sitting in the dark. Who's in front of me now with her hands clasped to stop it from being obvious how much she needs a drink. That kind of thing — you have no idea. Every guy's dream.'

Gulicks' face went blank. Not angry, not distressed. Just blank.

'Quitting is for quitters,' she said, suddenly dropping her voice a quarter octave. 'Everyone knows that.'

'Reason why I brought Agent Baynam up,' John continued, his voice at the same conversational pitch, 'is she's been called away on other business. This is not good news for you. Agent Baynam was convinced that you were innocent. Others around here are not. Detective Reidel for one.'

'He's dead,' she said. 'So who cares what he thinks?'

'How do you know that?'

'Talk of the town. I have nothing to do in here except listen. I have always observed. You want to know which deputy is being unfaithful? Who takes cash to forget speeding tickets? You want to know what they think of my tits? Because they
do
think about them. They think about the breasts of a murderer who hasn't had a shower in forty-eight hours. But still… the tits, right? What are the
tits
like? The TITS. Men really are something else, aren't they? Not big enough, by the way, is the general consensus.'